Faculty & Student News
Middle-East Peace-Building Project Moves Forward With Professional Development
Professors Paul Williams (HPME) and Catherine Chalin (Public Health Sciences) traveled to the Middle East in March 2004 as part of a Canada International Scientific Exchange Program (CISEPO) mission in support of a Jordanian government initiative to establish a program of universal newborn screening for hearing loss, a health problem of major significance in the region. Led by Dr. Arnold Noyek, CISEPO is a charitable NGO based at Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto which works across borders with Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian academics and clinicians and their institutions on collaborative, mutually beneficial projects. CISEPO’s lead program is the Middle East Association for Managing Hearing Loss (MEHA). To date, more than 14,000 Arab and Israeli newborns have been tested for hearing loss, and hundreds of children have been supported in their habilitation with hearing aids, auditory therapy, and family and professional education.
Williams and Chalin are working with the Jordan University of Science and Technology, the University of Jordan, and the Royal Medical Services to assess the professional development needs of faculty who will be involved in the new screening program. A key objective is to design and implement appropriate educational modules which meet faculty needs. Modules on research design and approaches to health systems analysis are anticipated. Lessons learned from the Jordanian experience will be shared with Israeli and Palestinian partners as they also consider implementation of universal newborn screening programs.
David Zakus Assumes Presidency of the International Health Medical Education Consortium
Professor David Zakus of the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and Director of the Centre for International Health, will be the first Canadian to hold the position of President of the International Health Medical Education Consortium (IHMEC). IHMEC is a consortium of 86 US and Canadian medical schools and residency programs and includes faculty and health care educators dedicated to international health medical education. Formed in 1991, its mission is to foster international health medical education in four program areas - curriculum, clinical training, career development, and international education policy. Dr. Zakus is currently serving as President-elect, and will assume Presidency in February 2005. The 14 th annual IHMED conference will be held in Toronto in 2005.
Sindhu Johnson Receives Ian Watson Award for Lupus Research
Sindhu Johnson, HPME MSc student in the Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research Program, received the Ian Watson Award for Lupus Research at the Canadian Rheumatology Association Annual Meeting in February for her research on “Ethnic Variation in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus”.
Paul Williams Keynote Speaker on Health Policy, Restructuring and Elder Abuse
Recent data suggest that between 5 and 10% of Ontario seniors experience some form of financial, emotional, psychological or physical abuse. There is also a growing awareness that senior abuse is a global problem and the governments have a key role to play in preventing and redressing abuse. Paul Williams, Associate Professor in HPME, and Keith Norton, Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, were keynote speakers at the Ontario Strategy to Combat Elder Abuse Provincial Stakeholder Networking Day at Queen's Park on March 3, 2004. Professor Williams’ presentation, "My mother's keeper: the impact of health and social services restructuring on seniors and ethnocultural communities", examined the ways in which provincial government policies can either alleviate or aggravate risk factors for elder abuse including poverty, isolation, dependency, gender and ethnocultural minority status.
Dr. Shabbir Alibhai Interviewed by Toronto Star
In an article in the March 15, 2004 Toronto Star, Metro Diary writer Joe
Fiorito relates the story of an interaction in the emergency department between Dr.
Shabbir Alibhai, a Muslim doctor, and Yo’av Kaplun, the Jewish son
of a terminally ill patient. The two reflect on the importance of Dr. Alibhai’s
simple question, “Will your father require a kosher meal?” and
how important the care provider’s understanding of different religious
faiths can be to patient and family members at the end of life. In addition
to his position in HPME, Dr. Alibhai is a specialist in Geriatric Medicine
at the University Health Network. He is co-author of “Ethical Issues
in End-of-Life Geriatric Care: The Approach of Three Monotheistic Religions
Judaism,
Catholicism, and Islam” in the August 2003 Journal of the American
Geriatrics Society.